JACKSON-Now with only six electoral votes - one less than four years ago - Mississippi hasn't figured in the national excitement in the run-up to the Nov. 2 presidential election.
But in the arcane system known as the electoral college for electing our presidents, Mississippi's electoral votes actually could become a player, especially if there's a deadlock, throwing it into the U.S. House to be decided.
We don't need to be reminded that in 2000 George W. Bush lost the popular vote by nearly 1 million votes to Al Gore but still won the presidency in the electoral college by 271 to 266.
Of course, Bush got the crucial edge through the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court which awarded him Florida's 25 electoral votes after four weeks of nightmarish counting of hanging chads and dimpled ballots that put him only 537 votes ahead out of six million votes cast.
A quick civic lesson: the electoral college is a 200-year-old constitutional artifact consisting of 538 votes - one for each senator and the number of U.S. House members each state has, plus three for the District of Columbia.
With an even number of votes in the electoral college, it's possible then that there could be a tie between Republican George Bush and Democrat John Kerry. That would mean the House would choose the president, with each state having one vote.
(The 1948 Dixiecrat movement was predicated on pooling electors from the Southern states pledged to neither major party, thereby denying a majority to either of the top finishers. That also would throw the election to the House. As history tells, that didn't happen.)
The prospect of a tie electoral vote in 2004 isn't far-fetched, since it nearly happened in the 2000 presidential race. Closer to home, in Mississippi which also has an "electoral college" provision in its constitution, in 1999 there was a technical tie in electoral votes between Ronnie Musgrove and Mike Parker.
However, the Mississippi House, with nearly two-thirds of its members elected as Democrats, quickly disposed of the issue by "electing" Democrat Musgrove.
The whole national electoral college picture can get stickier. It's mathematically possible that even if the election of the president is tossed into the House, with one vote for each state, there could be a 25-25 tie. Each state's House delegation would have to agree on which candidate would get its one vote.
OK, here's where the little state of Mississippi, with only four House seats, comes into play.
As calculated by Northwestern law professor Robert Bennett, an election authority, there are only four states which have House delegations equally split between Republicans and Democrats.
Mississippi happens to be one of those four, with two Republicans and two Democrats.
If they voted along party lines, Republican Reps. Roger Wicker and Chip Pickering would for certain vote for Bush. Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson and Gene Taylor would be expected to vote for John Kerry.
A tie in a state's delegation would result in an abstention of the state's vote.
Because of the immensity of the prize, one can only imagine the fierce bargaining that would go on in the background to get House members to cross party lines.
Obviously, a prime target Republicans would court to cross party lines and vote for Bush would be Mississippi's Taylor, the veteran Gulf Coast lawmaker, who has hardly ever been a reliable vote for the Democratic Party leadership.
However, while Taylor thus far has not publicly endorsed Democratic nominee John Kerry, he is known to sharply disagree with Bush's presidency. He had voted against the Gulf War in 1991 but supported using force in Iraq and voted against Bush's tax cuts as being irresponsible in a time of war.
Although the highly independent Taylor often votes with House Republicans, especially on anti-abortion and gun-control issues, he is emphatic that he has no intention of ever switching parties.
If the U.S. House faces a historic electoral deadlock, obviously Taylor would be thrust into a prime-time spotlight as holding a key to electing the next president.
